Close to 1 in 10 college students has considered suicide since starting college (Furr et al., 2001). Moreover, according to Furr et al., over half of college students are depressed. Some of the reasons for college-age depression are new, and other reasons were well-understood in the older literature summarized by Furr et al. The classic reasons for depression among college students include (a) displacement created by being away from home, (b) enhanced academic responsibilities, (c) separation from social support networks, and (d) tensions related to fitting in to a new environment, However, there are also some novel reasons for college-age depression. For example, the ubiquity of Facebook promotes depression mediated by envy and romantic jealousy (Tandoc et al., 2015). Thus, social media has added to the existing reasons for depression among college students.
Relatively few college students seek therapy (Michael et al., 2006). In particular, college-aged men are unlikely to seek therapy. This lack of therapy-seeking is dangerous, because suicidality is especially high for college students. Liu et al. (2019) found that approximately one in four U.S college students has considered suicide. Suicide risks are much higher based on factors such as race and sexuality; for example, transgender students are nearly 2.5 times likely to have considered suicide than cis-gendered students, and each instance of stress exposure significantly raises the chance of suicidality: 3.3% of students who have encountered no stress events have tried to commit suicide, whereas 21.1% of students who have encountered more than 6 stress events have tried to commit suicide.
Depression and suicidal ideation, both of which are already higher among college students, are significantly higher for vulnerable and highly stressed groups of students. These data unambiguously suggest that college students with depression should seek therapy. Moreover, given problems such as high turnover and lack of adherence to emerging best practices in or related to therapy (such as trauma-focused care, EMDR, and neurofeedback), colleges’ own clinical departments might be inferior to private practices in providing appropriate care to depressed college students.
References
Furr, S. R., Westefeld, J. S., McConnell, G. N., & Jenkins, J. M. (2001). Suicide and depression among college students: A decade later. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 32(1), 97-100.
Liu, C. H., Stevens, C., Wong, S. H., Yasui, M., & Chen, J. A. (2019). The prevalence and predictors of mental health diagnoses and suicide among US college students: Implications for addressing disparities in service use. Depression and Anxiety, 36(1), 8-17.
Michael, K. D., Huelsman, T. J., Gerard, C., Gilligan, T. M., & Gustafson, M. R. (2006). Depression Among College Students: Trends in Prevalence and Treatment Seeking. Counseling & Clinical Psychology Journal, 3(2),60-70.
Tandoc Jr, E. C., Ferrucci, P., & Duffy, M. (2015). Facebook use, envy, and depression among college students: Is Facebooking depressing? Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 139-146.
